Food fight

Twenty people turned up to the autism group tonight. That's too many really. I don't know if I'll keep going (even though I'd like to keep in touch with some of the people there). Part of me feels I shouldn't be going anyway because I've never had a diagnosis. The previous facilitator was there (she'll be back permanently in April) with her four-month-old daughter. We spent half the evening talking about how future sessions should be run. One guy was clearly annoyed at me when I kept mentioning the Auckland group, but hey, it was an amazing group they had (and presumably still have) up there; for some reason I found those monthly sessions extremely uplifting. I'll be going to the next one on 16th March.

Cholesterol might be clogging up my arteries as I type, but I'm actually a little fitter and stronger than I was a year ago. I've been getting more exercise (going to the gym every other day as well as the occasional tramp) and I do have some self-control when it comes to unhealthy (but scrummy) foods. Some people don't. On Saturday I saw two women (overweight and fortyish) in the Pak 'n' Save car park tucking into the sticky buns they'd just bought. For a lot of people the temptation is just too strong to resist. Surely humans have always been this way; if anything our increased knowledge of what's in our food should make us less inclined to consume fat, salt and sugar. So why instead are we in the middle of a so-called obesity epidemic? The Guardian have been running a series to look at this very issue. I had to agree with this article which argued that we need to stop blaming fat people and start looking at governments, large corporates and society in general to tackle the problem.

I babysat for my cousin on Friday night. They had a Chinese takeaway but my cousin bought way too much food and the kids weren't interested, so there was enough left over for a small army, just for me if I wanted it. I thought I did pretty well not to eat it all.

Mum has just booked a flight to stay with me at the end of March. I don't think she realised it was Easter, but actually I'm pretty glad she'll be coming up then.